The Tenement
This building had been abandoned and left untouched for the past decades. Paranormal rumors were the reason not even the homeless or drug addicts would come situate themselves here. It used to be a particularly populated tenement ever since The Great Depression hit, but a sudden breakout of the flu forced everyone to leave for a new area to live.
Today, I opened one of the doors that would lead into an apartment room. What I saw, stunned me.
"Mama! Mama! A stranger!" The little boy said as he ran to the kitchen. Right away, his father came through the other door, armed, pointing a double barreled shotgun at me. I threw my hands up, warned him I wasn't there to do them harm. He pointed his gun down, stared at me from head to toe and simply took a seat in his armchair. This old Labrador looked tired. His clothing was dirty, ripped and he worn no shoes. The mother came from the kitchen with a knife in hand, her kid hiding behind her back.
"Come in, boy. Have a seat." The old man said. Compared to his wife, one could mistake him for her grandfather. I sat down at the opposite armchair. The woman set the knife down and warned her kid, Peter, to go back to his bedroom. I looked around the apartment. Dusty, holes in the wall, cracked windows, knocked down chairs and the only source of light being the lit campfire before me and before the Labrador, "...What is your business here?"
"I came to explore. This building has been abandoned for nearly a century and...well, I figured I'd come here to see if anything interesting had been left behind." I told them. The armchair I sat at was surprisingly comfortable and looked in remarkable condition, in contrast to the old man's chair, "Locals won't come here because they're afraid of ghost stories. I don't believe in that sort of stuff."
"Hm..." He set his shotgun aside, resting it against his armchair, "My family and I have lived here for some time. Ever since that flu broke out, no one wanted to stay. Yet, I did. I had nowhere else to go. Besides, an empty building all for us seemed like a great opportunity to find peace."
I took another look around. A cockroach crawled into a hole in the wall. I looked back to him, "I can understand that. But history has done its toll on this building, don't you think?" The Labrador simply nodded, resting back onto his chair. I heard the kid come back into the room we were, carrying a stuffed animal in his hands. I noticed his bedroom did not have a door.
"History takes a toll on everyone. Years change and people do too. You look like someone who has changed a lot. Have you ever been interested in exploring the abandoned?"
The old man had a point, "Can't say I have, sir. It's a hobby that only found its way into me when I became an adult. Before that, I...was rather excluded from the outside world. But not because I wanted to. My...family always held me back from the real world."
"I see." The old man looked at his Peter, "...Quite the opposite from my family. You see, this boy, the woman and I, we've seen a lot already." Peter held his stuffed animal close to his torso, seemed to be shying away from me, retreating to his bedroom in backward steps, "We used to have four kids. Peter is all that remained."
"I'm...very sorry to hear, sir."
"It's fine. Angelina died from tuberculosis. We didn't have money to pay for her help. As you can tell, doctors care more about money than the lives they're supposed to save."
I shook my head, "I can't say I really think like that."
"Really? Then tell me why poor Bobby died from a stray bullet to the arm in The Bronx that got infected?" The old man raised his voice. I kept my eye on that shotgun in case he'd ever reach for it, "Capitalism is a rotten system that we've only realized when the economy broke down. I used to own a big automobile business, you know. I was rich...until it all happened."
I didn't want to inquire about the old man's age, but considering he was there when it all happened, I couldn't help but believe him. It was impressive how old he were and having lived in this empty shell of a place for so long. I'd believe breathing in all the dust would've put him in the grave already.
Peter came out of his bedroom again, now holding a toy car. The old man looked at him and let out a sigh, "No, Peter, I didn't ask to see a damn car!" Peter, however, walked over to me, sticking his arm out for me to get that car for myself. It looked like one of those old F1 cars with a little racer inside of it wearing a red helmet. It was all dirty, missing a wheel, but, I took it, holding it in my hand. Peter ran back to his bedroom right after, "...Damn weird boy. Talks more to strangers than his own parents."
The car felt weird in my hand. It seemed lighter than it actually looked, "He didn't say a word." I shrugged.
"Urgh. Woman!" He looked behind himself. The mother came through the kitchen door, holding a mug of coffee which he yanked out of her hand. She retreated back into the kitchen with a sigh, "...No sugar. As usual."
Considering the derelict state of the whole place, I was surprised there was even in coffee in his mug. I took a look at my watch, five minutes having already passed.
The old man seemed done with his coffee. Some fast drinker, apparently, "...Shitty home...shitty fucking country...shitty wife and kid. Fucking shit is what life is." He put the mug down, next to the campfire right in front of him. One wonders how that fire hadn't spread around the place already, "I can only hope that when I die, Peter grows up to live in a world that isn't like the one I had to live in. All I hear now is technology. Computer, cellphone or whatever. I can't buy the boy any of that, but I hope that when he's old enough to get a job, he can get one and stop begging me for stuff I can't get him. Hell, if he even lives to be eighteen in the first place."
Considering how things looked for most youth of the current generation, I somehow doubted that. But the kid looked very young, maybe with luck he'd grow into a better world where rent and student fees wouldn't be so high and getting a job would be easier, but, yet, the kid looked like he didn't even know what two plus two was.
"I hope he takes a lot from his father at young age and learns that the world is a shit place at young age, though." The Labrador continued, "That's the mistake my family made when I was young, they held my hand for too long and fucked my expectations for what real life actually was."
"You said you were rich, though." I reminded him, "Not everyone gets to be rich. You got something and lost it all for a reason, right?"
"And what do you think that reason was? This fucking country is what it was. Capitalism!"
"Capitalism is what got you into getting so much money in the first place. It's flawed, yes, but, you can't say that at least in some point of your life, you were better off than a big percentage of this country."
"..." The old man grunted, stood up from his armchair and went towards the window, "...It sucks to say this, but, you're right." He turned around, "And yet, the same thing that got me in such a high status fucked me over."
"...That...is kind of how life is." I shrugged, "Something helps you and then eventually it might kill you." I looked to Peter again, in his room. He had another toy car, a red one, which kept rubbing against the floor. Rubbing, because it had no wheels at all, "You said your boy wants more than you can get him. It's a good time to tell him that getting more than he wants might strike him down."
"I suppose..." He sat back down, crossed his arms, staring into the fire, "...I had more than I wanted too, I guess. A whole bunch of money and nothing to spend on except more things to get more money."
I looked to Peter once more, "...He seems entertained by that toy of his." I looked to the one in my hand and up to the old man, "I wonder why he gave me this one."
"He's unpredictable with what he wants."
I took a look at my wrist watch again. Ten minutes. I decided it was time to go, "I better head off. Dusk is coming soon and it's the last thing I need in a place like this." I stood up, carrying the car in my hand. The old man did as well.
"Alright then, son. Be safe on your travels. What was your name again?"
I put my hand on the door handle whilst looking back to him, "Jean Poole, sir. Yours?"
"I'm Peter." He responded. I tilted my head a little.
"Oh, same as your son?"
"Yeah, he's Peter, Jr. Gonna be just like his father, one day...but maybe better."
"That we can hope. Have a good evening sir." I went past the door, closing it behind me. I looked at the car and stored it in the satchel by my side.
"Jean!" A female voice shouted down the hall, sending shivers down my spine. I looked to its direction and it was just my fellow explorer, Tundra. She walked over to me, opening her satchel and pulling out a broken lantern, "All I could find is this. It appears to be made of iron, so I guess it'll look good in your collection. Found anything?"
"Yeah. A toy car missing a wheel." I showed it to her, my other hand pointing a thumb at the door, "Kid living in this apartment gave it to me. There is someone living here, after all."
"There is?" She asked, looking to the door, "...That's...strange. Before we got here, I had double checked with a local about anyone living in this place."
"What? They said they've been living here for a long time now." I furrowed my brows, looking back to the door. Tundra went ahead and put her hand on the handle, "Hey, knock first."
She ignored me however and pushed the door open. What I saw inside, stunned me.
No one was there. No campfire, no knocked over chairs, but the room was still just as derelict. It was empty. Devoid of life.
"Hello?!" Tundra called out. All we heard was a shuffle in the room to the left, where Peter's bedroom were. Something moved in the dark, a shadow going past the doorway. We looked at each other. Tundra closed the door and we darted for the exit. On the way there, the toy car dropped from my hand and I didn't bother to stop and pick it up. I did, however, look back to where it fell as we ran out of there. It had vanished, just like its owner.